CU Head Nordic Coach Bruce Cranmer Announces Retirement

BOULDER — Bruce Cranmer, the University of Colorado head Nordic coach for the past 18 seasons and a Buffalo alpine skier in the 1970s, will be retiring from his post that he has held since August of 2000.

Cranmer, who coached 12 different CU skiers to 18 individual NCAA Championships and helped lead the Buffaloes to four team NCAA titles as a coach and two as a member of CU's alpine team in 1972 and '73, will officially retire from the University on July 1.

For Cranmer, 67, skiing and ski racing has been a part of his life practically since birth. His retirement from coaching comes after a 30-year NCAA career, which included 12 years (and an additional four NCAA titles) as the head cross country coach at Vermont.

"I don't think I started out thinking, 'Oh, this is what I want to do,' " Cranmer said. "It was just a passion and a love that I had for my whole life and I just sort of fell into the coaching part because that was offered to me after I quit the U.S. team and coached for 12 years in Vermont and 18 years at CU. It has been super, it was a great opportunity. I can't thank CU and Richard (Rokos) enough for the opportunity and the friendship and camaraderie with everybody."

The Buffs won the mythical Nordic national championship seven times under Cranmer's tutelage, scoring the most Nordic points at the NCAA Championship in 2004, '06, '08, '10, '11, '13 and '15. Those are the only seven times in Colorado history the Buffs topped the Nordic points list since the NCAA went to a combine skiing championship in 1983.

Cranmer's roots with Colorado and the United States go deeper than his 18 year coaching career or winning two national championships under Bill Marolt in the early 70s. His grandfather, George, started the Winter Park Ski Resort, which has blossomed into one of the finer ski areas in the world. Cranmer coached for two U.S. Olympic Teams, the 1994 squad in Lillehammer, Norway, and the 1998 team in Nagano, Japan. After his ski racing career at CU ended, he later went on to compete for the U.S. Ski Team from 1980-88 and he was a member of the 1985 World Championships team.

"It's been awesome, I've always had deep roots in Colorado, family and ski-wise from my grandfather in Winter Park to just me growing up here skiing since I was a tiny, tiny little kid," Cranmer said. Skiing or ski racing has pretty much been my entire life. Probably 65 years of skiing, 30 years of coaching, and I don't know when I started my first race, but a lot of years of racing and eight years with the U.S. ski team as an athlete and coaching at a couple of Olympics, so it has been my passion and my whole life, really."

After his run at Vermont, Colorado head coach Richard Rokos hired Cranmer back to CU in August 2000 and the duo were the masterminds behind the most dominant skiing program in the country.

"Bruce represents for me one of those die-hard Buffs," Rokos said. "He was born in Colorado, graduated from CU and ended up coaching here for 18 years, so many major accomplishments in his life were associated with CU. He has always been a very positive person and great asset to our program.

"One thing is that with him being here for that long and being committed to the program, we've had a great deal of consistency and tradition. The relationships between all the new and old generations has always been gapped with people like Bruce, who have been here a long time and they have the history with the school."

There is a long line of highly decorated Nordic skiers under Cranmer's watch, including four athletes he led to individual NCAA Championship sweeps (winning both Nordic discipline national titles in the same year). Petra Hyncicova did so in 2017, Mads Stroem in 2016, Maria Grevsgaard in 2008 and Jana (Rehemaa) Weinberger in 2006.

"I guess for me he was instrumental in convincing me that CU and combining skiing with an education in the U.S. was a great opportunity," Stroem said of Cranmer's influence on him coming to CU and over the course of his career. "Moreover, after spending four years as a skier in Boulder I developed and achieved results none others have done, which he was a great part of. He was always honest with me and a great guy with lots of stories from his career and a great coach who listened to me and my suggestions. I think I speak on behalf of both me and Rune Malo Oedegaard (who won two NCAA titles in 2013 and 2014 under Cranmer) that without Bruce, skiing for CU wouldn't have been the same."

Weinberger, who Cranmer recruited to CU from Estonia, just completed her 10th season on the Colorado staff as the assistant Nordic coach after graduating in 2006.

"I am very grateful to Bruce for giving me a chance to ski for CU," Weinberger said. "He took a chance on me and it worked out great. As his assistant he taught me to be patient and approach each athlete individually. Under his leadership, the CU ski team has been one of the best teams in collegiate circuit. I still have a lot to learn from him and he will always be my mentor."

At the 2018 Winter Olympics, two of Cranmer's athletes were competing on the world stage. Joanne Reid, who Cranmer helped lead to the 2013 women's freestyle national championship, was competing in her first Olympics in the biathlon with Team USA. Hyncicova, fresh off her NCAA championship sweep as a junior in 2017, was there in PyeongChang with the Czech Republic while still a member of the CU team.

"I was kind of hoping for a national championship to finish on a very sweet note, but I could be playing that game for years and years and years," Cranmer said. "You never know how they come together, there is a lot of circumstances that all have to conspire and some luck and good health, too. That is a little hard to chase that one.

"I just kind of felt after being a little bit away from the season and stuff that now would be a good time. I think the team is really strong and we have a couple of new athletes coming and Alvar (Alev) of course is coming back (he was just granted another season by the NCAA). I think on the Nordic side, we have a really strong team. The women's team has been super strong and I think it will remain that way and the men will be strong, too. I feel like I am leaving things in a good place."

As for the next chapter in his life, Cranmer looks to catch up on some of the activities he has missed out on over the years while coaching.

"I think I'm ready to do some other things in life," he said. "I'll still be skiing and still will be a Buff. I'm not going away, I plan on staying around Boulder and will support CU.

"I certainly enjoy traveling, I have friends all over the world. There are things that I couldn't do in the fall that I love doing. Going on a climbing trip with a friend or going out when an opportunity comes up and you go, 'Oh, I'd love to do a Grand Canyon kayaking trip' or go on a trip to some remote area out by the ocean. Now I can be more spontaneous and have the opportunities to do that. My mom is still alive, she is 97, and I can spend a little more time with her. And I can ski more. I always enjoyed being fit as much as I can and being active and I don't anticipate that changing."

Cranmer Career Highlights
• Helped lead CU to NCAA Championships in 2006, 2011, 2013 and 2015.
• Helped lead Vermont to NCAA titles 1989, 1990, 1992 and 1994.
• Coached 12 different CU skiers to 18 individual NCAA Championships (including four who swept the NCAA individual titles).
• The Buffs have won the mythical Nordic national championship seven times under Cranmer (2004, '06, '08, '10, '11, '13 and '15).
• Coached Maria Grevsgaard, 2006-09, to 24 career race victories, the most by any skier in Colorado history. In fact, four of the seven on CU's record list for all-time race victories were coached by Cranmer.
• A total of 30 of his athletes have earned 72 first-team All-America honors in all, he has had at least one first-team All-America performance each year and 10 times CU has had four or more Nordic athletes earn first-team All-America honors, including a CU record five, accomplished in 2010.
• Including second-team All-America honors, Cranmer has coached 34 different athletes to 119 such honors in his time at Colorado.
• The Buffs under Cranmer have also had 25 different skiers win a total of 129 races, including 20 skiers winning 121 races since 2006.
• The Buffs have twice swept all four Nordic races under his tenure, in 2008 at the RMISA Championships when Grevsgaard and Kit Richmond both swept the races, and in 2009 at the Alaska Invitational when Grevsgaard won both races while Gelso and Kjoelhamar each one a men's race.
• In his time at Vermont, the Catamounts boasted 12 individual Nordic NCAA Championships including a pair of four-time winners in Thorodd Bakken and Laura Wilson and a pair of Olympians in Joe Galanes and Kerrin Petty.
• Coached for two U.S. Olympic Teams, the 1994 squad in Lillehammer, Norway, and the 1998 team in Nagano, Japan.
• He won NBC's Survival of the Fittest in 1985 and won the overall Great American Ski Chase in 1986. He is also a Class 5 whitewater kayaker.

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